1100 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 18, NO.
6, JUNE 2019
Gain Equalized Shared-Aperture Antenna Using
Dual-Polarized ZIM for mmWave 5G Base Stations
Karthikeya Gulur Sadananda , Student Member, IEEE, Mahesh P. Abegaonkar , Senior Member, IEEE,
and Shiban K. Koul , Fellow, IEEE
Abstract—A shared-aperture antenna with orthogonal pattern
diversity is proposed in this letter. Both the ports have high gain
and beam integrity for the operational bandwidth 27–30 GHz in-
tended for the future mmWave 5G base stations. The measured
mutual coupling is −18 dB at 28 GHz, and the endfire gains for the
individual ports are 7–8 dBi in the band of interest. Hence, in order
to achieve gain enhancement and equalization between the ports, a
dual-polarized zero-index metamaterial is proposed and is strate-
gically loaded with the shared-aperture antenna for simultaneous
gain enhancement in both the ports. The measured mutual cou-
pling post-integration is less than −22 dB at 28 GHz. The endfire
gains for the orthogonal ports are in the range of 9.2–9.6 dBi and
1 dB gain bandwidth of 35% with an effective radiating volume of
0.09λ0 3 . Detailed simulated and measured results are presented.
Index Terms—Dual-polarized zero-index metamaterial
(DPZIM), millimeter-wave (mmWave) 5G base station, pattern
diversity, shared-aperture antenna.
I. INTRODUCTION
HE tremendous increase in data-hungry applications, es-
T pecially with respect to smartphone users, has encouraged
researchers in academia and leading research organizations to
look for design of hardware ecosystem at 28 GHz and beyond
for future 5G cellular systems, primarily due to spectral con-
gestion in the sub-6 GHz bands. Path loss for millimeter-wave
(mmWave) communication links is high—for instance, for a
10 m link at 28 GHz, the path loss is 82 dB as against 60 dB
for the same distance for the existing commercial 4G cellular
link. It must be observed that the penetration losses are also
high (>20 dB) for the 28 GHz for common building materials
such as concrete and brick [1]. In order to establish a reasonable
communication link, high-gain antennas must be deployed at the
base stations and mobile terminals to compensate path loss as
noted in [2] for the proposed 5G band. However, high-gain an-
tennas would necessarily mean low beamwidth leading to poor
coverage. Therefore, base station antennas must have reasonably
high gain. Thus, high-gain antennas with least physical footprint
would be an ideal candidate for the 5G base station operating
Manuscript received March 5, 2019; accepted April 7, 2019. Date of publi-
cation April 11, 2019; date of current version May 31, 2019. (Corresponding
author: Karthikeya Gulur Sadananda.)
K. Gulur Sadananda is with the Indian Institutes of Technology Delhi, New
Delhi 110016, India (e-mail:,karthikeyaglr@gmail.com).
M. P. Abegaonkar and S. K. Koul are with the CARE, Indian Institutes of
Technology Delhi, New Delhi 110016, India (e-mail:, mpjosh@care.iitd.ac.in;
shiban_koul@hotmail.com).
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LAWP.2019.2910183
1536-1225 © 2019 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission.
See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
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in the 28 GHz band. High-gain antennas could be designed by
phased array schemes such as [3] and [4], but the design of phase
shifters and the controllers for beam-locking for the communi-
cation link would be challenging to design. Also, N-port phased
array system (N > 4), which would create a resultant beam at 0°
and 90°, would suffer from scanning loss, hence leading to gain
deterioration away from the boresight. As the beam is scanned
away from 0°, the sidelobe level also increases. Therefore, an-
tennas with orthogonal pattern diversity are preferred. It must
be noted that pattern diversity architecture also increases the
data throughput of the communication system. Shared-aperture
antennas could be redesigned for mmWave 5G base station to
achieve high gain with pattern diversity and least physical foot-
print. The pattern diversity topology suggested in [5] has four
orthogonal ports with low mutual coupling in the 2–20 GHz
band. Shared aperture is not a feature. Shared aperture proposed
in [6] does not have independently controllable patterns. It must
also be noted that the gain variation between the two modes of
operation is more than 2 dB across the bandwidth due to the dual
beamforming. Gain enhancement architecture with zero-index
metamaterial (ZIM) loading proposed in [7] would operate only
for the designed incident polarization. Similarly, the metamate-
rial superstrate presented in [8] is sensitive to the incident po-
larization, and the decoupling strategy might not be operational
for orthogonal incident waves. Miniaturization techniques such
as integration of modified circular slot ring resonator with the
antenna would yield a compact design with a compromise in
gain [9], hence proving unsuitable for base station applications.
Shared-aperture design targeting satellite applications [10] has a
compact design, but the gain variation across the ports or bands is
noticeable. Thus, in order to achieve uniform gain for orthogonal
ports with minimal physical footprint, shared-aperture antenna
with dual polarized zero-index metamaterial (DPZIM) unit cells
is proposed. Section II describes shared-aperture antenna, fol-
lowed by design and characterization of DPZIM in Section III
and integrated shared-aperture antenna design in Section IV.
II. SHARED-APERTURE ANTENNA
The deployment scenario of the 5G base station module is
evident from Fig. 1(a), in order to achieve the same: Shared-
aperture antenna with orthogonal pattern diversity is proposed.
The schematic of the proposed antenna with shared aperture
and pattern diversity is depicted in Fig. 1(b); the correspond-
ing photograph is shown in Fig. 1(c). The structure is designed
GULUR SADANANDA et al.: GAIN EQUALIZED SHARED-APERTURE ANTENNA USING DUAL-POLARIZED ZIM
Fig. 1. (a) Typical deployment scenario of the antenna. (b) Schematic of the
proposed shared-aperture antenna (units: mm). (c) Photograph of the shared-
aperture antenna.
on Nelco NY9220 with a dielectric constant of 2.2 ± 0.02 at
28 GHz with a loss tangent of 0.0009 and 20 mil thickness. A
low dielectric constant was chosen to reduce additional surface
wave modes, and an electrically thin substrate would reduce
cross-polarization radiation in endfire. The feedline is a stan-
dard 50 Ω line of width 1.5 mm and is in series with a quarter,
wave transformer of 96 Ω with line width of 0.5 mm transi-
tioning to the microstrip-to-slotline transition of 194 Ω. Two
antennas with identical flare angle of the radiating aperture are
merged to a single shared aperture with a port-to-port distance of
30 mm. The elements could be designed to be electrically closer,
which results in degradation of mutual coupling and radiation
characteristics, hence the chosen topology is a compromise be-
tween mutual coupling, beam integrity across band, and gain
with least physical footprint, for a compact antenna with pat-
tern diversity across the 27–30 GHz band intended for 5G base
stations. The flare angle of the radiating aperture is designed
for optimal beamwidth in the endfire. The shared aperture in-
creases the mutual coupling between the two orthogonal ports.
The structural asymmetry leads to variation in radiation pattern
across the band. Shared aperture is designed with tapered slot
antennas (TSAs) since the beamwidth could be engineered for
the application in hand. TSA elements also offer high beam in-
tegrity throughout the operational spectrum.
The E-field plots for both ports at 28 GHz are illustrated in
Fig. 2. The quasi-cylindrical wavefront at the edge of the physi-
cal aperture is evident, which creates a larger error in the phase
front, leading to lower gain for both the ports. The high mu-
tual coupling is also evident from the illustrations. The sim-
ulated and measured S-parameters for both ports are depicted
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1101
Fig. 2. (a) E-field for port-2 excitation at 28 GHz. (b) E-field for port-1 exci-
tation at 28 GHz.
Fig. 3. S-parameters of the proposed shared-aperture antenna.
in Fig. 3. The impedance bandwidth for the shared-aperture
element is 27–30 GHz (10%). The impedance bandwidth could
be enhanced by replacing the stepped impedance transformer
with a wideband balun, but this would lead to pattern distortion
at the higher end of the spectrum, hence leading to significant
variation in gain. The impedance characteristics are similar for
both the orthogonal ports. The measured mutual coupling is in
the range −17 to −19 dB in the 27–30 GHz band. The mutual
coupling is high due to the shared aperture and the ports being
electrically close.
Previously reported orthogonal pattern diversity antenna
modules such as that presented in [11] have gain variation across
the band. Leaky-wave topology would be unable to maintain ra-
diation pattern integrity when the beam is excited for a 90° tilt
with respect to boresight [12]. Similarly, phased array archi-
tecture reported in [4] suffers from a scanning loss of almost
2 dB for a beam tilt of 45°; hence for a beam scan at 90°, the
scanning loss would be higher, leading to increased degradation
of the patterns. Thus, dual-polarized metamaterial unit cells are
investigated.
III. DPZIM DESIGN AND CHARACTERIZATION
The endfire gains of the proposed shared-aperture antenna
varies between 7–8 dBi. In order to enhance gain with the
same physical footprint, integration of metamaterial unit cells is
1102
Fig. 4. (a) Design evolution of the DPZIM unit cell. (b) Proposed DPZIM unit
cell schematic (units: mm). (c) Extracted parameters of the unit cell.
investigated. Typical gain enhancement technique such as quasi-
Yagi topology [13], [14] is strongly polarization-sensitive, and
hence in the context of shared aperture, gain enhancement would
be achieved in one of the orientations in addition to degrading the
far-field patterns of the orthogonal port. The zero-index meta-
material unit cells proposed in [7] are also strongly polarization,
sensitive. Integration of these unit cells might not be an optimal
solution for simultaneous gain enhancement across the ports
with reduction in mutual coupling. The design evolution of the
unit cell is depicted in Fig. 4(a). In order to achieve gain en-
hancement in dual-polarization modes, the insertion loss (|S21 |)
must be minimal, and the unit cell must create a reasonable al-
teration of the phase of the incoming wave. As observed in the
S-parameters curves, the circular ring has high insertion loss. De-
sign B has relatively lower insertion loss, but the relative phase
difference is insignificant, hence the proposed design has least
insertion loss with a substantial phase difference as observed in
the figure. The proposed subwavelength DPZIM unit cell along
with the simulation model is shown in Fig. 4(b). The orthogo-
nally symmetric slots act as capacitors, and the arc-shaped stubs
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IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 18, NO. 6, JUNE 2019
Fig. 5. (a) E-field for port-2 excitation at 28 GHz. (b) E-field for port-1 exci-
tation at 28 GHz.
Fig. 6. (a) Schematic of the proposed shared-aperture antenna. (b) Photograph
of the shared-aperture antenna.
act as inductors, leading to a near-zero refractive index as illus-
trated in the extracted parameters in Fig. 4(c) in the frequency
of interest (27–30 GHz). The parameters are extracted by the
method described in [15]. The orthogonally symmetric slots aid
in the dual-polarized action of gain enhancement. The capaci-
tive slots could be radially increased for a multiport polarization,
but the gain yield post-integration would be minimal. The gain
enhancement would be optimal when the polarization of the in-
cident E-field matches the slots of the unit cell, which in turn
would reduce the phase error of the E-field across the physical
aperture, hence effectively increasing the forward gain.
IV. SHARED-APERTURE ANTENNA WITH DPZIM
The E-field plots post-integration with the DPZIM unit cells
are shown in Fig. 5. The planarization of the cylindrical wave-
front is evident for both ports compared to the plain shared-
aperture antenna presented in Section III. The strategic load-
ing of the unit cells is designed for gain enhancement and gain
equalization of the ports with simultaneous reduction in mutual
coupling between the ports.
The dual-polarized nature is operational in the shared-aperture
topology. The orthogonal slots of the unit cell match the orthog-
onal polarization of the ports of the shared-aperture antenna.
The phase error across 1 λ has been reduced from 50° to 20°,
hence leading to gain enhancement of more than 2 dB across
GULUR SADANANDA et al.: GAIN EQUALIZED SHARED-APERTURE ANTENNA USING DUAL-POLARIZED ZIM
Fig. 7. S-parameters of the proposed shared-aperture antenna.
Fig. 8. Radiation patterns at 28 and 30 GHz.
the band and the ports. The schematic of the proposed element
along with the photograph is shown in Fig. 6.
Decrease in the number of unit cells would lead to insignifi-
cant gain enhancement, and an increase in the rows of unit cells
would increase the physical footprint. |S11 | and |S22 | of the re-
spective ports remain almost unaltered post-integration with the
DPZIM as illustrated in Fig. 7 primarily due to the minimal ef-
fect on the microstrip to slotline transition of the antenna. The
measured mutual coupling for the ZIM-loaded shared-aperture
antenna is in the range −23 to −20 dB in the 27–30 GHz band,
hence a decrease of more than 3 dB across the band is observed.
Since the mutual coupling is reduced, this would lead to higher
isolation between the ports, leading to radiation patterns with
higher beam integrity in the frequency of operation.
The simulated and measured endfire radiation patterns with
pattern diversity at 28 and 30 GHz are shown in Fig. 8. It must be
observed that beamwidth is 40° ± 5° for each of the ports in the
frequency of operation. The patterns are stable across the band
for both the ports. The front-to-back ratio is more than 15 dB,
and the patterns are orthogonal, hence proving its utility in a
typical mmWave 5G base station.
The discrepancy between the simulated and measured radia-
tion characteristics is primarily due to the effect of lossy adapters
utilized for measurements. The flaring angle of the shared aper-
ture decides the beamwidth. The current topology is optimized
for low beamwidth, consequently leading to higher gain, which
is essential to maintain a fair communication link budget in a
standard communication setup to compensate high path loss in
the 27–30 GHz band. The simulated and measured gains for
each port are illustrated in Fig. 9. It is observed that the endfire
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1103
Fig. 9. Endfire gains of the proposed antennas.
TABLE I
COMPARISON AGAINST REPORTED DESIGNS
∗
F = Center Frequency (GHz), G = Gain (dBi), GBW = 1dB Gain Bandwidth (%),
MC = Mutual Coupling (dB), ERV = Effective radiating volume (λ0 3 ), PD = Pattern
diversity.
gains of the orthogonal ports are 7–8 dBi without the integration
of ZIM unit cells, and the gain variation is almost 1 dB between
the ports due to the asymmetry in the dielectric loading of the
shared aperture. The simulated gain after integrating with ZIM
is in the range of 9.2–9.6 dBi and a 1 dB gain bandwidth of
26–37 GHz (35%) for both ports. Table I illustrates the features
of the proposed pattern diversity module against other reported
designs. It is evident that the 1 dB gain bandwidth is 35%, indi-
cating a wideband high pattern integrity behavior for orthogonal
pattern diversity with minimal effective radiating volume.
V. CONCLUSION
A compact shared-aperture antenna operating in the
27–30 GHz band is presented. Orthogonal pattern diversity of the
shared-aperture antenna was also presented. The endfire gains
for both the ports were in the range of 7–8 dBi in the frequency
of interest. Hence, a DPZIM unit cell was designed and strategi-
cally integrated to the radiating aperture of the proposed element.
The endfire gains post-integration were found to be 9.2–9.6 dBi.
The 1 dB gain bandwidth was 35%. The radiation patterns are
stable for the entire band. Endfire patterns at 28 and 30 GHz
were presented. Hence, the proposed design could be a potential
candidate for future mmWave 5G base stations.
1104 IEEE ANTENNAS AND WIRELESS PROPAGATION LETTERS, VOL. 18, NO. 6, JUNE 2019
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